Introduction to Maya 2012

In this lesson, we'll be exploring Maya's channel box as well as the Layer Editor. OK, so for this scene, I'm actually going to open up an existing project, or an existing file. So again, make sure you're inside your intro to Maya general project, take a look inside the scenes folder, and look for dt underscore bicycle. So let's select this and click Open. There we are. So this is the file that we're going to work with. Let's start by talking about the channel box. So this is going to be this area right up here. Now this channel box is essentially where we can start to view actual transformation, rotation, scale information, as well as other information that may be related to the geometry that we have selected. So let's start by just grabbing one of these objects down here. Let's say this bicycle's front spoke. This bicycle is actually something that we build in our introduction to modeling in my 2012 course. So starting with this, if we were to grab this object, you can see we have translation, rotation, scale information, and things like that. Now if I were to come in and with this object selected switch over to my rotate tool and let's say rotate this along one of my axes or even any of my axes, you can start to see that rotation information gets displayed here in my channel box. So you can see I've rotated this object 59.779 degrees in its x-axis. So what we could do is use this information and come in, and if we wanted something to be a little bit more precise, let's say I wanted this to rotate exactly 45 degrees, I could just type that in, and there we are. So this becomes really, really useful if you want to move your object in very, very precise values. So if I wanted this to be moved exactly 10 units up in the y-axis, I can type in 10, and there we go. And this also becomes useful if we want to get our object right back to its original position or rotation. So you just type in, let's say, zero for the translate, you can see that puts it right back to where it was, and zero for the rotation. There we are. Now what's really nice about these channel box values is the fact that we can actually use these interactively. So if I wanted to, let's say, rotate this object around its x-axis but maybe not necessarily use the rotation manipulator, what I could do is just select this attribute right here, just click it to highlight, and now move my cursor anywhere out in this open workspace. It really doesn't matter where. Now with this selected and my cursor out in this open area, now I can middle-click and drag from side to side. And now I can interactively adjust whatever attribute I happen to have highlighted. So we can actually work with multiple axes at the same time. So let's actually click and drag to highlight all of these. Now again, I can middle-click And you can see now I'm actually moving all of these at the same values. So really, really nice abilities to have here. And we can even select multiples. If I were to come in and just control-click on two of these, and again come out here, middle-click, you can see how I can now interactively adjust both of these. All right? In addition to actually being able to control things like the transformations of our objects within this channel box, we can also control the names of our objects. So let's say I wanted to come in and rename something. I can select any piece of geometry that I want. And up here at the top, this is where we can actually dictate what the name of this object is going to be. Let's say right now we have this at two wheel front tire. Maybe I wanted this to be named a little different. I can call this something like front bike tire, or whatever I want. I can just double click rename and then press Enter on my keyboard. And now you can see that this object has now been renamed. So keep in mind that if you want to rename something, again, just select it and now double click. So normally, this channel box will show you just one single object. Now a good indicator of whether or not you may have multiple objects selected is if you do have, let's say, several things selected it out here, you'll notice that we have the name followed by a dot, dot, dot. That's Maya's way of telling us that we have more than one object currently selected. OK? So that is basically the channel box area. Now below the channel box, we have the Layer Editor. Now within this area, this is where we can actually start to take our objects and assign them to multiple layers. So for example, let's say I wanted to take all these objects that make up this front tire and have them on their own layer, so that way I can lock these down, keep them separated, whatever the case may be. So with these objects selected, we could do one of two things. We could make a new empty layer that really has no geometry connected to it. Or we could make a new layer from whatever objects we currently have selected. Now there are also some icons here that will do the exact same thing. So this icon with the blue sphere will create a new display layer from whatever we have selected. This empty plane will just make as a new blank layer. So what I'm going to do is select these objects, make a new layer with these objects connected to them, and there we go. Now what you'll notice is if I were to select, let's say, one of these objects, and now within my channel box I were to scroll down and look at the inputs, you see this layer one. That's now telling me that the object that I have currently selected is linked to this layer one. Now I can come in and rename this anything I want. So if I double click on this, let's call this something like front wheel layer, or whatever you want to call this. Hit save, and there we go. So now we've renamed this. And you'll also notice that the object that I currently have selected has now updated its input to show that it's now linked to this front wheel layer. OK. So with this object selected, or with the objects assigned to this layer, we can now start to do things like control the visibility. So if I click on this little V icon, I can now make this object visible or invisible. If the object is not visible, you'll notice that it cannot be selected or manipulated in any way. So this can be useful for hiding objects that maybe we don't need to be using currently, or really whatever the case may be. All right. Now next to this, we have the ability to switch between a couple of different modes. So if you have this little icon that is currently empty or has nothing in it, that means that really this is being treated completely normal. So really nothing special about it at this point. If we click on this, you'll notice that it switches to this little T. This is set to now a template mode, which now you'll notice that this object is displayed in this light grey wire frame, whereas everything else is still shaded. So you'll also notice that we cannot select this object or anything that's currently assigned to this layer. So this could be useful maybe if we have objects that we're using for reference, maybe we're modeling on top of, or maybe we want to be able to see through and not really not interact with in any way. Again, this is a template mode. If we click on R, this is set to now a reference mode. Which if you look at a reference object, it really doesn't look like much is different. Really the only difference here is that we are not able to interact with it. You'll notice that if we try to select this object, nothing happens. So this can be a really, really useful way of locking down controls, locking down objects that we want to make sure that we don't accidentally interact with. We can now set that to a reference and not have to worry about that. If I press the 4 key on my keyboard, you'll notice that this object is now set to this black wire frame. This is a pretty good indication that this is now a reference object. So anything that you have set as a reference gets this black wire frame. Now if we click on this once again, you can see now my wire frame is this nice blue. You'll notice that this icon is now empty. And now we're right back to normal. OK. Now finally, we can start to come in and click on this little button here. Now what this will let us do is actually change the wire frame color of our surface. So let me come in and choose this light yellow. There we are. You'll notice it really doesn't look all that different. If I select this surface, really nothing has happened. We really won't see this kind of a change until we go to a wire-free mode. So again, I press the 4 key on my keyboard, and now I can very easily see those objects are contained on that layer. So this can be a really, really nice way of being able to color code certain objects if we start to create controls, things like that, or maybe just visually isolating certain areas of our mesh. This also gives us a really good visual indicator of being able to tell exactly which objects belong to which layer, so if we start to create multiple layers with multiple objects assigned to them. So if I select these objects, make a new layer. Let's call this something like rear wheel layer. There we are. And now if I were to set this to a bright red, save that. There we are. Now we can see exactly which objects are contained on this layer. If you have multiple layers and they have the same wire frame color, at this point now you may not necessarily be able to tell which is which or which objects are assigned to which layer. So in some situations, it can sometimes be useful to just right-click on a layer and then tell Maya to select the objects that are currently on that layer. And there we are. And if we have any objects that for whatever reason we no longer want to be connected to a certain layer, we can just select that object. Again, let's go to our front wheel layer because that's where this object is actually contained. Let's right-click on this and tell Maya to remove these selected objects. And now if I deselect, you'll notice that this wire frame's now this blue color. And you'll notice also if I select the object and take a look in my channel box that the input is now set to the default layer, meaning that this object does not belong to either of my layers. So really, as you start to get a little bit deeper into Maya and you start to create some more complex objects, maybe that consist of multiple pieces of geometry, lots of complexity, lots of overlapping surfaces, I think you'll find that these display layers become a really, really useful way of being able to organize and visually separate some of these different elements that make up your main objects. So that's a look at the channel box as well as the Layer Editor in Maya.